Dolphins Aren't Nuts About Bolts

DAVIE - — Just the thought of it upset Chuck Klingbeil. It drove J.B. Brown out of the state.

The San Diego Chargers were using the Dolphins' training facility to prepare for the Super Bowl. The Chargers were practicing on the Dolphins' field and changing at their lockers.

It was the ultimate slap in the face after three years of growing tensions between the teams turned the game into a heated exchange. That rivalry will be renewed Sunday night when the Dolphins visit Jack Murphy Stadium in a vital game for both teams.

The Dolphins (5-3) are trying to build on their 23-6 victory over Buffalo and remain atop the AFC East. The Chargers (4-4) are trying to find consistency as they chase Oakland and Kansas City in the AFC West.

But the importance of the game may take a back seat to the teams' growing distaste for each other. What started with a couple of blitzes in an early 1993 playoff game has blossomed into full-fledged dislike.

"Horrible, that was tough," Klingbeil said of the Chargers using the Dolphins' facility. "I would try not to think about it, that those guys were in here when we should have been. I just kept thinking, they're in there using my locker getting ready for the Super Bowl."

"I was sick," Brown said. "I wasn't even in the state. I was back home in Maryland. I couldn't be here. Thinking about them using our locker room, it was sick."

The feelings are so strong that guard Keith Sims was already alluding to the Chargers only minutes after the Dolphins' victory over the Bills.

"We have some special feelings for the Chargers," Sims said with a sly grin.

Many people remember that last year's AFC playoff loss at San Diego was the day the lights went out on the Dolphins' offense. Literally.

After the Dolphins took a 21-6 halftime lead, they found that the lights were off in their locker room. As the team fumbled in the dark, the coaches tried to explain an offensive adjustment in the blocking scheme.

The Dolphins' defense opened the second half by stopping the Chargers at the 1-yard line. But with some offensive players still a bit confused, the Dolphins surrendered a safety on the ensuing play when running back Bernie Parmalee was thrown for a loss.

"That was a huge momentum shift," Klingbeil said. "Marco [Coleman] made a great stop and on the sidelines, we were slapping hands, thinking we had them. Then, the next moment, [the coaches are] yelling, `Defense.'''

The problem with the lights followed a controversy the day before the game and heated words from San Diego General Manager Bobby Beathard aimed at Dolphins coach Don Shula.

"I lost a lot of respect for Don for what he pulled," said Beathard, who worked with Shula as a Dolphins' personnel man during the 1970s. Beathard was irked byh Shula's insistence that the Dolphins have a walk-through practice in rain-soaked Jack Murphy Stadium the day before the game.

The Chargers, who have become infamous around the league for not allowing teams to have walk-throughs, ran interference. Stadium workers, claiming the field was covered, were locking the gates as the Dolphins drove up.

Eventually, the Dolphins had NFL official Jerry Seeman step in to arbitrate. Seeman ruled that the Dolphins had the right by rule to practice. Beathard then blew up at Seeman, saying, "The guy [Shula] owns the league, so he gets whatever he wants. ... Anything he wants, he gets."

The whole affair so angered the Dolphins that they filed a detailed report with the NFL. "I don't recall that," Shula said Monday, but it happened.

"It's turned into a rivalry," Brown said. "Our West Coast rival, the San Diego Chargers. ... If we get the chance to run the score up on them, we'll do it and I'm sure they'll do it to us if they get a chance. That's football and that's fair."

What was the origin of all this discontent? Rather simple.

In an AFC playoff game on Jan. 10, 1993, the Dolphins defeated the Chargers 31-0 on a rainy January night at Joe Robbie Stadium. In the fourth quarter, the Dolphins ran some blitzes, defense coach Tom Olivadotti later saying that he was just trying to get his players off the field on third down.

The Chargers didn't see it that way, thinking the Dolphins were trying to run it up with their defense, odd as that may sound.

In any case, the Chargers remembered the next season when they played the Dolphins on Dec. 27, 1993. The Dolphins were on a five-game losing streak that would drop them from 9-2 to out of the playoffs. They also were battered by injuries, missing Dan Marino, Troy Vincent, Louis Oliver and John Offerdahl.

The Chargers took full advantage for a 45-20 victory, an embarrassing thrashing on a Monday night. The coup de grace was that in the fourth quarter, San Diego brought in backup quarterback John Friesz and the Chargers called a long pass. The pass fell incomplete, but left an imprint on the Dolphins.

Before the playoff game last season, the Dolphins' coaching staff ran that play repeatedly in an attempt to inspire the players. It got to the point that some players were almost sick of seeing it.

Some of them are sick now, but the image causing their illness is something different these days.

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